I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
ALBUQUERQUE — Sen. Pete Domenici is spending the 2008 campaign’s final day as busy as though he was on the ballot himself. Shuttling between appearances, he spoke with the Independent about meetings with John McCain’s campaign staff and an evening at the New Mexico Republican Party’s Election Night event at the Uptown Marriott.
Facing his final election as a sitting senator, Domenici predicted New Mexico would know its presidential winner “sooner rather than later” and said he’d be making phone calls “to a number of people who ran, telling them they ran a good race.”
It has to be a bittersweet day for a man who defined political stewardship not only for New Mexico but, in his leadership roles on the national budget and energy, the United States. Last year, recognizing a degenerative brain disease was progressing more rapidly than he had expected, Domenici announced he would not seek re-election to a seat he has held for 36 years.
But on this day when his successor will finally be chosen, he found himself with somewhat mixed emotions.
“It’s been coming to an end for so long, it’s not like it shocks me that this day has finally arrived,” he said. “For the Senate, we’ve had such a surge of work. We’ve been off for a month, then working, then off.
“Each day back here in New Mexico, I’ve experienced a thank-you party with a lot of people. Each one pounds in a little more firmly that I’m finished with the Senate and onto something else.”
As for what that something else might be, the Republican stalwart said he’s still up in the air. He and his wife, Nancy, haven’t decided whether to relocate from Washington, D.C., to Albuquerque. He said their D.C. home is “a beautiful house” and wouldn’t draw the kind of value they would like to get from it. And there are children and grandchildren in both places.
“That’s great,” he said. “Wherever we go, there are grandchildren.”
With the fate of the nation looking precarious, Domenici — who once stood the line against President Reagan’s deficit spending — declared himself concerned.
“I’m so worried,” he said. “If we avoid economic disaster, it’ll have been a great achievement on our part. I don’t know how we’ll get out of financial trouble.”
Domenici helped craft the $700 billion “rescue plan” that Congress recently passed to wide praise and criticism. In it was a requirement that health insurance companies offer parity in mental health care equal to what they offer in physical health care — a long-fought goal of his and one of his lasting legacies, among build-up of the state’s national labs and preservation of the Sandia Mountains as a national wilderness.
Before rushing off to another appearance, he offered his advice to tonight’s presidential victor.
“I believe this is what makes or breaks us: Be careful in who you choose to be your presidential advisers,” he said. “No one is big enough to do it themselves. Neither of these (candidates) has been at it long enough not to need a cadre of leaders.”
He recommended the next president choose advisers who are “well-versed, not too ideological” and “loaded with good, wise opinions.”
